


Not a waiting room

by vasever



Category: The Night Shift (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-26 18:34:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10792362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vasever/pseuds/vasever
Summary: TC observes a symptom.





	1. Chapter 1

T.C. is always aware of where Jordan is. It makes them good partners in the operating room - he always coordinates his movements with hers; their hands never accidentally bump. It extends to when they're in the hallways or the ER lobby at the same time. Sometimes he catches himself shouting to her - an ask for a second pair of eyes or hands, a direction to an OR room - without even having consciously realized that she was nearby. 

T.C. realizes that the awareness is unusual after one of Topher's practical jokes; Jordan would never be able to sneak up on him like Topher had. 

He wonders if she's as aware of him. Sometimes when they talk to patients or families or legal together, he suspects it. She speaks when he's too angry to talk - or so angry he shouldn't be talking. When he has a crazy idea, she tees him up. 

He's not sure what it means. This isn't battle field though. It isn't even an ER waiting room. He doesn't need to make a diagnosis just yet.


	2. Krista

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm thinking of this as a set of observations by different characters about TC and Jordan's relationship. Krista. Apologies for anything I get wrong about medicine and life in the Army.

Krista watches TC and Jordan and wonders how they do it. Wonders how they can do the same job, be up for the same promotions or demotions, and not let the competition eat into their friendship - now, their relationship. Her friendship with Paul has always been tinged with the competition, starting with practical jokes and becoming, in tense moments, his undermining her in front of patients. She likes Paul a lot, but she can't imagine becoming close friends with him - at least not until they work at different hospitals. Their competitiveness with each other gets in the way. 

She turns it over in her head. Her thing with Kenny wasn't good in a lot of ways, but it worked here: he was a nurse, she was a doctor. Her not-thing with Joey - similar, he was the surgeon, she was the intern. How do TC and Jordan do it? 

The next night, at a moment when it's just her and Drew in the break room, she asks him what he thinks. 

Drew doesn't have to think before saying, "They don't think of themselves as doing the same job. If they're on the same case, they play different roles: Jordan takes lead on diagnosis; T.C. takes lead on intervention or surgery." It's obvious that he's considered it too. He leaves to check on a patient. 

Walking back to her own patient, Krista considers the answer. TC and Jordan don't need to do it that way - T.C. knows medicine as well as anyone else and Jordan trained in a Baltimore E.R. - and they play different roles with other people. Is it some gender thing? TC gets his hands dirty and Jordan does paperwork. The thought is hard - Jordan is such a role model - and there are other explanations. Jordan saw a broader range of patients than TC did while he was in Afghanistan; TC was the only medic in his unit and did more interventions. Probably that's it. 

Krista catches TC smiling at Jordan while Jordan's talking to a patient in Screen One. Maybe they're just better people than she and Paul are. Or older. Something.


End file.
